


Seven and Ten: Two Kinds of Perfection

by thehandsoftime



Category: Samaria - Shinn
Genre: F/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 17:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehandsoftime/pseuds/thehandsoftime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Nathaniel and Magdalena were the only two angels ever allowed to intermarry by a special dispensation of the god." A love story, in parts, and a metaphor if you tilt your head just a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven and Ten: Two Kinds of Perfection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_antichris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_antichris/gifts).



i.

 

Somewhen, Magdalena falls in love with Nathan. And Nathan? Nathan has always been in love with Magdalena.

It isn't normal. It isn't allowed. And yet: it is.

 

ii.

 

They know better. They know the prohibitions. They know that no good can come of their union. They know, they know, they know.

Knowledge is not always the protection that it should be.

 

iii.

 

Magdalena's father dies with a portrait of her lost mother still on his bedside table. As he lays dying, he tells her the story of her mother again. He warns her about love and the tragedy it can bring and she thinks of Nathan.

She tries to believe her father, but she finds it almost impossible to believe in anything but love when she looks at Nathan.

 

iv.

 

Nathan writes songs about frustrated love and Magdalena sings them. They rehearse in the music rooms, sometimes at Monteverde and sometimes at the Eyrie. They sing together, voices blending perfectly, and Magdalena has to scrunch her eyes shut to keep from looking at him.

Nothing more happens just then.

 

v.

 

There aren't as many male angel-seekers as there are female ones, but Magdalena dallies with as many as she can stand to and Nathan tries his best to do the same. They want each other, but they know the stories of their parents, they know wanting one thing doesn't exclude wanting other things. They know, they know, they know that they cannot have what they want, and they hope, they hope, they hope that they can find something else that will do well enough to get by.

None of their dalliances mean anything. None of the men sing like Nathan, none of the women look like Magdalena, and it always ends in the music rooms, trading stories about the angel-seekers and laughing together.

At best, their encounters with the angel-seekers are counterproductive.

 

vi.

 

Magdalena cannot imagine a world without Nathan. When his father dies, she and Ariel fly to the Eyrie with their condolences. The Archangel is there and Ariel stops to speak with him, but Magdalena goes in search of Nathan.

She finds him in one of the music rooms, seated on the floor surrounded by his wings and scattered sheets of paper, some crumpled, some smooth, all dotted with music notes. He doesn't notice her entrance and so she reaches one hand out and touches his wing. It's utterly improper, completely impolite, but they are the only ones who will know and neither one will tell.

"Maga," he says and he stands. She wraps her arms and her wings around him. Neither one of them says a word, but she hums softly, the music of the song he wrote when her father died. Finally, he pulls away, looks into her eyes, whispers, "I have to go," and leaves.

 

vii.

 

Nathan lasts two years after that. Two long years and then they are in a music room again, practicing a duet for the Gloria. As Magdalena ends the song, she keeps her face upturned towards the god. She has gotten much better at pretending as she has grown older.

Nathan closes his eyes. "That was beautiful," he says. He is holding her hand, their fingers are entwined, and he cannot stop himself from pulling her close and carefully pressing his lips to hers.

She hesitates. She knows better, she does, but it's _Nathan_ and she knows at last that there is truly nothing she can do to change the way she feels. Her heart sinks in despair, even as her stomach flips with excitement -- and it only gets worse when she notices the shooting pain in her arm from a glowing Kiss, gleaming with every color of the rainbow.

 

viii.

 

"Magdalena, you can't," Ariel says.

"I know that," Magdalena replies. "Do you think I don't know that?"

"I think you don't care." Ariel has never snapped at her sister before, but she does now.

"I do care," Magdalena whispers. "That's the problem."

 

ix.

 

"I love you," Magdalena says.

 

x.

 

"I love you," Nathan says.

 

xi.

 

"It is forbidden," Gabriel says.

"Forbidden?" Nathan is torn between laughter and tears. "By who? By Raphael? By you? By Jovah? Jovah is the one who made us this way."

"Jovah has forbidden angels to mate with one another."

"And yet my Kiss lights for her, as we're told it does in the case of all true lovers."

"Jovah's ways are higher than our ways," Gabriel says piously. "Perhaps he is testing you with this obscene desire of yours."

"It isn't obscene," Nathan snaps, then shakes his head. "If the god is testing me, I will surely fail."

 

xii.

 

Magdalena visits Velora in search of scarves and fabrics. It is a flimsy excuse, but Ariel lets it slide and Magdalena is relieved.

Nathan does not excuse his trips to Gaza; he simply informs Gabriel of them only once it is too late for Gabriel to stop him.

Magdalena goes to Luminaux in search of Ariel's birthday present and she stops at the Eyrie, for it is on the way and it would be rude not to.

Nathan arranges a month in Gaza, to be spent at a Mandaavi compound three hours from Monteverde.

 

xiii.

 

Magdalena knows what Ariel is trying the minute that Ariel mentions Gabriel's new bride and the way that she isn't fitting in to life at the Eyrie. Ariel knows Nathan's plans and Magdalena knows that her sister is tired of watching the disaster that she and Nathan are courting.

She volunteers before Ariel can ask her to stay. Nathan isn't the only one she loves.

 

xiv.

 

The world doesn't end when Raphael says it will. Nathan knew that it wouldn't. The god, vicious though Nathan sometimes fears Jovah might be, could never destroy a world with Magdalena in it.

 

xv.

 

Magdalena doesn't see Nathan again until one week after the Gloria when he arrives at Monteverde looking more windblown than she has ever seen him. He bows to Ariel and then turns to Magdalena. Oddly enough, Ariel is smiling nearly as much as Nathan is.

"Nathan," Magdalena says. "What brings you here?"

"You haven't told her?" Nathan asks, looking at Ariel, not at Magdalena.

"Told me what?" Magdalena demands. She places her hands on her hips and glares at her sister.

"I thought I would let you," Ariel replies, paying Magdalena no mind.

"Thank you," Nathan says, bowing to her again before turning to Magdalena. "Maga." He takes one of her hands and Ariel does not object. "I've just come from Mount Sinai."

"Mount Sinai?" she asks. "Has Jovah decreed what is to happen to Jordana?"

"Yes," he says. "And he has proclaimed something even more important."

"More important than the fate of Jordana?" she asks.

"To me, it is." Nathan meets her eyes levelly, his smile not fading one bit. "I think it will be to you, as well."

 

xvi.

 

Nathan worries about the child where no one can see. He knows Magdalena is worried and he will not worry her more. He reminds himself that this is Jovah's will, that Jovah permitted it for a reason, and that when he has held to his faith in the god, his faith has been rewarded.

It is not easy, but one after another, healthy children are born, not lucifers, not monsters, and it grows even easier for Nathan to trust the god.

His trust shines through and gives Magdalena the strength to trust as blindly.

 

xvii.

 

This isn't a story that has an ending.

Before the story of Nathaniel and Magdalena come the stories of Jeremiah and Hannah and of Lemuel and Rahab and a Jansai man.

After the story of Nathaniel and Magdalena comes the story of Tamar, their mortal daughter.

After the story of Tamar comes the story of Ruth.

After the story of Ruth comes the story of Zakary.

After the story of Zakary comes the story of Jacob.

After the story of Jacob comes the story of Caleb.

And after the story of Caleb, everything changes.


End file.
